After completing the course in English literature at the Graduate School of Osaka University, I studied at the State University of New York at Buffalo in the U.S. and earned an M.A. in women’s studies and a Ph.D. in sociology. My master’s thesis in women’s studies dealt with the gender issue from the perspective of the manga culture seen in rental manga books in post-war Japan, while my doctoral dissertation in sociology considered the relationship among the norms of conduct, division of labor, and gender, focusing on the interactions among hairdressers in Japan. In 2020, I published a book titled Hikokumin na Onna-tachi (Unpatriotic Women), in which I discussed issues relating to the consumer culture, gender and national identity in wartime Japan.

My current research interest lies in Japanese women who crossed the oceans to Japan’s colonies or occupied territories during wartime and got jobs there. As a researcher of cultural studies, I am primarily interested in exploring the meaning given by society to women’s migration and labor. The Japanese wartime government prompted women in the middle class to work outside the home under the national mobilization system. And yet I wonder what made middle-class women dare to go abroad to work, considering that for women to work outside the home had been seen as deviating from the norm. It is unlikely that they were simply brainwashed into believing in the ideology advocated by the then government. This is why I am exploring the meaning of these women’s actions in the context of Japan’s imperialism.

Try to tackle any theme that you find interesting.

Culture, gender, social norms, media, audience